D-Day Memorial Update

Published:July 27, 2009 by Brendan Wolfe

The National D-Day Memorial in Bedford is in danger of closing due to financial problems. A bill designed to help is wending its way through Congress:

An effort to save the National D-Day Memorial has made some progress, as the U.S. Senate passed a defense-spending bill that instructs officials to consider making the monument a federal property.

The bill includes language introduced by Sens. Mark Warner and Jim Webb directing the Department of the Interior to study the feasibility of making the financially struggling monument a National Park Service site.

Webb spokeswoman Kimberly Hunter said the legislation passed Thursday is scheduled to go to a conference committee, but she expects the final version of the bill will retain the D-Day Memorial language.

2 Comments

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2 Comments on “D-Day Memorial Update”

  1. Gordon Morse

    This whole thing was never well thought-out and the efforts to fund the Bedford memorial through the federal government, good-intentioned though it may be, will not correct what remains a poor conception. There is already a splendid D-Day memorial, located at Vierville-sur-Mer, in Normandy, France. I’ve been there four times myself and never cease to be moved and instructed. There are many Virginians interred there, included several Medal-of-Honor recipients. How about if we take the federal money and send some school kids over there, so they can come back and tell their friends and families what they’ve seen and learned? For that matter, why don’t we encourage people generally to get off the plane at Paris and make their way to any number of American memorials in Europe, especially those where Americans have remained pavillioned since World War I.

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  2. Brendan Wolfe

    Thanks for the comment, Gordon. What, do you think, is poor about the D-Day Memorial’s conception? Is it simply that there is another, better memorial somewhere else? It seems to me that France is not close enough to Virginia to preclude honoring D-Day veterans here, too.

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